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Bible Encyclopedias
English Versions
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
or 1. Introductory
2. The Bible in Anglo-Saxon and Norman Times
3. John Wycliffe
4. How Far Was the 14th-Century Version Wycliffe's Work?
5. From Wycliffe to Tyndale
6. William Tyndale
7. Miles Coverdale
8. Matthew's Bible
9. Richard Taverner
10. The Great Bible (Cranmer's Bible)
11. Reaction, 1541-57
12. Edward VI
13. Mary
14. The Geneva Bible (The "Breeches Bible")
15. The Bishops' Bible
16. Rheims and Douai Version
17. The Authorized Version
18. The Apocrypha
19. Further Revisions
20. English Revised Version
21. American Revised Version
22. Has the Revised Version (British and American) Displaced the King James Version?
Literature
English Versions of the Scriptures
1. Introductory
The battle for vernacular Scripture, the right of a nation to have the sacred writings in its own tongue, was fought and won in England. Ancient
2. The Bible in Anglo-Saxon and Norman Times
The clergy and learned men had always of course access to the Scriptures in the Vulgate, a translation of the original Scriptures into Latin completed by Jerome at the very beginning of the 5th century; and from this version - the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible , 390-405 ad) - practically all further translations were made till the days of Luther. Within a century or little more after the landing of Augustine in England and his settlement at Canterbury (597 ad) Caedmon , a monk of Whitby, produced (670) his metrical version of the Bible, hardly indeed to be reckoned a version of the Scriptures in the ordinary sense, though it paved the way for such. Bede of Jarrow (672-735) translated the Creed and the Lord's Prayer and, according to the beautiful letter of his pupil, Cuthbert, breathed his last on the completion of his translation of the Gospel of John into the language of the people. Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne in the county of Dorset (died 709), translated the Psalter in another translation with which the name of King Alfred is associated; and the other efforts of that ruler to spread the knowledge of the Scriptures among his people are well known. Notice, too, should be taken of the glosses. "The gloss," says Eadie ( English Bible , I, 14, note), "was neither a free nor yet a literal translation, but the interlinear insertion of the vernacular, word against word of the original, so that the order of the former was really irrespective of idiom and usage." The finest example of these is seen in the Lindisfarne Gospels, which were written in Latin about the year 700, and provided with an interlinear translation about 950 by Aldred , the priest. These with a version of a considerable section of the Old Testament by Aelfric , archbishop of Canterbury about the year 990, comprise the main efforts at Bible translation into English before the Norman Conquest. In Anglo-Saxon there is no proof of the existence of any translation of the complete Bible, or even of the complete New Testament. The sectional
3. John Wycliffe
Born in Yorkshire about the year 1320, Wycliffe was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he soon became a Fellow and was for a short time Master, resigning the latter position in the year 1361 on his presentation to a living in Lincolnshire. He died at Lutterworth in Leicestcrshire in 1384. It was during the last quarter of his life that he came forward as a friend of the people and as a prolific writer on their behalf. Notwithstanding the external glory of the reign of Edward III, there was much in the ecclesiastical and social circumstances of the time to justify popular discontent. The Pope derived from England alone a revenue larger than that of any prince in Christendom. The nobles resented the extortion and pretensions of the higher clergy; and, according to Green, "the enthusiasm of the Friars, who in the preceding century had preached in praise of poverty, had utterly died away and left a crowd of impudent mendicants behind it." The Black Death, "the most terrible plague the world ever witnessed," fell in the middle of the century and did much further to embitter the already bitter condition of the poor. In France things were no better than in England, and the Turk had settled permanently in Europe. It is not wonderful that Wycliffe began, as is said, his version of the New Testament with the Book of Revelation. With his social teaching the present article is not specially concerned. It probably involved no more than the inculcation of the inherently democratic and leveling doctrines of Christianity, though some of the Lollards, like the Münster peasants in the German Reformation, associated it with dangerous socialistic practice. In any case the application of Christianity to the solution of social problems is not in any age easy to effect in practice. His tracts show (Eadie, I, 59ff) that it was from what Wycliffe had felt the Bible to be to himself that there sprang his strong desire to make the reading of it possible for his countrymen. To this was due the first English version of the Bible. To this also was likewise due the institution of the order of "poor priests" to spread the knowledge of the Bible as widely as possible throughout the country.
4. How Far Was the 14th-Century Version Wycliffe's Work?
There is some uncertainty as to the exact share which Wycliffe had in the production of the 14th century version. The translation of the New Testament was finished about the year 1380 and in 1382 the translation of the entire Bible was completed, the greater part of the Old Testament being the work of Nicholas Hereford , one of the reformer's most ardent supporters at Oxford. The work was revised on thoroughly sound principles of criticism and interpretation, as these are explained in the prologue to the new edition, by John Purvey, one of Wycliffe's most intimate friends during the latter part of his life, and finished in 1388. "Other scholars," says Mr. F. G. Kenyon, of the British Museum, "assisted him in his work, and we have no certain means of knowing how much of the translation was actually done by himself. The New Testament is attributed to him, but we cannot say with certainty that it was entirely his own work" (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts , 200, 3rd edition, London, 1898). This entirely corresponds with the position taken up by Forshall and Madden, the editors of the great Oxford edition of Wycliffe's version issued in 4 large quarto volumes in 1850. That work was undertaken to honor Wycliffe and in some measure to repay England's indebtedness to the reformer. The editors were men of the first literary rank; they spent 22 years upon this work; and it is recognized as a credit at once to the scholarship and research of Oxford and of England. Its honest and straightforward Introduction answers by anticipation by far the greater part of the criticisms and claims put forth by Dr. Gasquet (Our Old English Bible and Other Essays , London, 1898; 2nd edition, 1908). The claim is made that the work published in Oxford in 1850 is really not Wycliffe's at all but that of his bitterest opponents, the bishops of the English church who represented the party of Rome. Gasquet's work on this subject is mainly worthy of notice on account of his meritorious research in other departments of the English Reformation. His arguments and statements are met by Kenyon (op. cit., 204-8). The controversy is further noticed in The Age of Wycliffe , by G. M. Trevelyan (2nd edition, London, 1908), a work which cannot be too highly praised for its deep research, its interesting exposition and its cordial appreciation of the reformer and his works. "Nothing," says Trevelyan (Appendix, 361), "can be more damning than the licenses to particular people to have English Bibles, for they distinctly show that without such licenses it was thought wrong to have them." The age of printing, it is to be remembered, was not yet.
The Wycliffe Bible was issued and circulated in copies each of which was written by the hand. About 170 copies of this manuscript Bible are still in existence. They form a striking proof of what England and the world owe to the faith, the courage and the labor of John Wycliffe and his "poor priests."
5. From Wycliffe to Tyndale
It is a remarkable fact that before the year 1500 most of the countries of Europe had been supplied with a version of the Scriptures printed in the vernacular tongue, while England had nothing but the scattered copies of the Wycliffe manuscript version. Even Caxton, eager as was his search for works to translate and to print, while he supplied priests with service-books, preachers with sermons, and the clerk with the "Golden Legende," left the Scriptures severely alone. Nor was there a printed English version, even of the New Testament, for close on half a century after Caxton's death, a circumstance largely due to the energy of the Tudor dictatorship and the severity of the Arundelian Constitutions enacted by Convocation at Oxford in the year 1408:against Wycliffe and his work. These enactments forbade "upon pain of the greater excommunication the unauthorized translation of any text of the Scriptures into English or any other tongue by way of a book, pamphlet, treatise or the reading of such." Meanwhile the study of the new learning, including that of the original languages of Scripture, though generally resisted by the clergy, was greatly promoted by the invention of printing.
6. William Tyndale
Erasmus, perhaps the chief representative name of the new age in the domain of learning, was professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1509 to 1524, and in the 2nd year of his professorship William Tyndale, an Oxford student in the 26th year of his age, migrated to Cambridge to study Greek. Ten years later Tyndale returned to his native county
7. Miles Coverdale
Miles Coverdale, who first gave England a complete and authorized version of the Bible, was a younger contemporary of Tyndale. Tyndale was a year younger than Luther, who was born in 1483, and Coverdale was four years younger than Tyndale. Born in the North Riding of Yorkshire, he found his way to Cambridge at the time when Erasmus was professor of Greek, and appears at an early date - how is not known - to have got into the good graces of Crumwell, the "malleus monachorum," factotum and secretary to Wolsey, and later on the King's principal abettor in his efforts to render the Church of England thoroughly national, if not to an equal extent Protestant. Adopting the liberal party in the church, he held Lutheran or evangelical views of religion, east off his monastic habit, and, as Bale says, gave himself up wholly to the preaching of the gospel. He is found in 1527 in intimate connection with More and Crumwell and probably from them he received encouragement to proceed with a translation of the Bible. In 1528 he was blamed before Tunstall, bishop of London, as having caused some to desert the mass, the confessional and the worship of images; and seeking safety, he left England for the Continent. He is said by Foxe to have met Tyndale at Hamburg in 1529, and to have given him some help in the translation of the Pentateuch. An uncertainty hangs over Coverdale's movements from 1529 to 1535, a period during which much was happening that could not fail to be powerfully changing opinion in England. The result of the Assembly held at Westminster by Warham in May, 1530, and of the Convocation held under his successor, Cranmer, in December, 1534, was that in the latter it was petitioned that "his Majesty would vouchsafe to decree that the sacred Scriptures should be translated into the English tongue by certain honest and learned men, named for that purpose by his Majesty, and should be delivered to the people according to their learning." Crumwell, meanwhile, who had a shrewd forecast of the trend of affairs, seems to have arranged with Coverdale for the printing of his translation. However this may be, by the year 1534 "he was ready, as he was desired, to set forth" (i.e. to print) his translation; and the work was finished in 1535. And thus, "as the harvest springs from the seed which germinates in darkness, so the entire English Bible, translated no one knows where, presented itself, unheralded and unanticipated, at once to national notice in 1535" (Eadie, I, 266). It is declared on the title-page to be "faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latyn into Englishe:
8. Matthew's Bible
Convocation meanwhile was not satisfied with Coverdale's translation, and Coverdale himself in his honest modesty had expressed the hope that an improved translation should follow his own. Accordingly in 1537 - probably at the suggestion of, and with some support from, Crumwell and certainly to his satisfaction - a large folio Bible appeared, as edited and dedicated to the King, by Thomas Matthew. This name has, since the days of Foxe, been held to be a pseudonym for John Rogers, the protomartyr of the Marian persecution, a Cambridge graduate who had for some years lived in intimacy with Tyndale at Antwerp, and who became the possessor of his manuscript at his death. Besides the New Testament, Tyndale, as above mentioned, had published translations of the Pentateuch, the Book of Jonah, and portions of the Apocrypha, and had left a manuscript version of Joshua to 2 Chronicles. Rogers, apparently taking all he could find of the work of Tyndale, supplemented this by the work of Coverdale and issued the composite volume with the title, "The Bible, which is all the Holy Scriptures, in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testaments, truely and purely translated into English by Thomas Matthew. Esaye I, Hearken to, ye heavens, and thou earth, geave eare: for the Lord speaketh.
9. Richard Taverner
Matthew's first edition of 1,500 copies was soon exhausted, and a new edition was issued with some revision by Richard Taverner, a cultivated young layman and lawyer who had in his early years been selected by Wolsey for his college at Oxford. He was imprisoned in its cellar for reading Tyndale's New Testament; but he was soon released for his singular musical accomplishments. He was an excellent Grecian, of good literary taste and of personal dignity. For the Old Testament curiously enough he made, good Grecian as he was, no use of the Septuagint; but throughout aimed successfully at idiomatic expression, as also at compression and vividness. Some of his changes are kept in the King James Version, such as "parables" for "similitudes" and in Matthew 24:12 , "The love of the many shall wax cold," and others. He also does greater justice to the Greek article. His dedication to the king is manly and dignified and compares most favorably with the dedications of other translators, including that of the King James Version. The book appeared in two editions, folio and quarto, in 1539, and in the same year two editions, folio and quarto, of the New Testament. The Bible and the New Testament were each reprinted once, and his Old Testament was adopted in a Bible of 1551. But with these exceptions Taverner's version was practically outside of influence on later translations.
10. The Great Bible (Cranmer's Bible)
The next Bible to appear was named from its size. Its pages are fully 15 inches long and over 9 inches broad. It was meant to be in a way a state edition, and is known as the Great Bible. As sufficiently good type, paper and other requisites could not be found in England, it was resolved that it should be printed in Paris. Coverdale and Grafton, the printer, went to Paris to superintend the printing; but the French church authorities interfered and the presses, types and workmen had to be transferred to London where the work was finished. It was the outcome of the Protestant zeal of Crumwell who wished to improve upon the merely composite volume of Tyndale and Coverdale. Its origin is not very accurately known, and authorities such as Hume, Burnet and Froude have ventured upon statements regarding it, for which there is really no proof (Eadie, I, 356ff). The duty of editor or reviser was by Crumwell assigned to Coverdale who, as a pliant man and really interested in the improvement of the English version, was quite willing to undertake a work that might supersede his own. The rapidity with which the work was executed and the proofs of the minute care devoted to it by Coverdale may appear remarkable to those who are acquainted with the deliberate and leisurely methods of the large committee that produced the King James Version in the reign of King James or the Revised Version (British and American) in the reign of Queen Victoria. Of course Coverdale had been over all the work before and knew the points at which improvements were to be applied; and a zealous and expert individual can accomplish more than a committee. Luther translated the New Testament and, after revising his work with Melanchthon, had it printed and published in less than a year. The printing of the Great Bible began in May, 1538, and was completed in April, 1539, a handsome folio, printed in black letter, with the title, "The Byble in Englyshe, that is to say, the contents of all the holy scripture, bothe of the olde and newe testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes, by the dylygent studye of dyverse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tongues. Prynted by Rychard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum . 1539." The elaborate notes for which asterisks and various other marks are provided were never supplied; but the actual translation shows devoted attention to the work and much fine appreciation of the original languages and of English. In the New Testament the version derived assistance from the Latin version of Erasmus, and in the Old Testament from Münster and Pagninus. Variations in the text could of course be got from the Complutensian Polyglot. The Great Bible shows considerable improvement upon Tyndale in the New Testament, and upon Coverdale in the Old Testament. "So careful," says Eadie (I, 370), "had been Coverdale's revision and so little attachment had he to his own previous version, that in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah the Bible of 1539 differs in nearly forty places from his version of 1535." The clergy of course had no love for Crumwell and still less for his work, though to avert clerical prejudices, Coverdale had made concessions in his translation. The work was cordially welcomed by the people, and a copy was ordered to be printed for every parish church, the cost to be paid half by the parson and half by the parishioners. A further revision of this version was carried out by Coverdale for a second edition which appeared in April, 1540, and is known as Cranmer's Bible, mainly from the judicious and earnest preface which the archbishop wrote for it. "It exhibits a text formed on the same principles as that of 1539, but after a fuller and more thorough revision" (Westcott, 254). Two other editions followed in the same year and three more in the year following (1541).
11. Reaction, 1541-57
After the publication of the Great Bible (1539-41) no further advance took place for many years. The later years of Henry
12. Edward Vi
No new work marked the reign of Edward VI, but great activity prevailed in the printing of previous versions Thirty-five New Testaments and thirteen Bibles were published during his reign of six years and a half; and injunctions were issued urging every person to read "the very lively Word of God" and for a copy of the Great Bible with the English paraphrase of Erasmus to be set up in every church. By royal order a New Testament was to be sold for 22 d , a sum representing as many shillings of present value.
13. Mary
Less repressive work regarding the translation and diffusion of Scripture than might have been expected occurred in the reign of Mary, though in other directions the reaction was severe enough. According to Lord Burghley, during the three years and nine months of Mary's reign, the number of 400 persons perished - men, women, maidens and children - by imprisonment, torment, famine and fire. Among the martyrs were Cranmer and Rogers; Coverdale escaped martyrdom only by exile and the powerful intervention of the king of Denmark. The copies of the Bibles in the churches were of course burned; and - though individual translations were not specified - proclamations were issued against certain books and authors. Still the books were not, as formerly, bought up and confiscated; and so the activity of Edward's reign in the production of Bibles left copies widely distributed throughout the country at the close of Mary's reign. At this time a New Testament was printed at Geneva which had great influence upon future versions of the Bible.
14. The Geneva Bible (the "Breeches Bible")
This New Testament was issued in 1557 and was most probably the work of West Whittingham, an English exile who had married Calvin's sister. It was translated from the Greek and compared carefully with other versions It had also a marginal commentary which was more complete than anything similar that had yet appeared in England; and it was the first translation that was printed in roman letter and in which chapters were divided into verses. Calvin wrote for it an introductory epistle, and it had also an address by the reviser himself. A few months after its publication the more serious task of the revision of the whole Bible was begun and continued for the space of two years and more, the translators working at it "day and night." Who the translators were is not said; but Whittingham, probably with Gilby and Sampson, stayed at Geneva for a year and a half after Elizabeth came to the throne, and saw the work through. It was finished in 1560, and in a dignified preface was dedicated to Elizabeth. The cost was met by members of the Congregation at Geneva, among whom was John Bodley, father of the founder of the great library at Oxford. Its handy form - a modest quarto - along with its vigorously expressed commentary, made it popular even with people who objected to its source and the occasional Calvinistic tinge of its doctrines. It became and remained the popular edition for nearly three- quarters of a century. The causes of its popularity are explained in Westcott, 125 f. Bodley had received the patent for its publication; and upon his asking for an extension of the patent for twelve years, the request was generously granted by Archbishop Parker and Grindly, bishop of London, though the Bishops' Bible was already begun.
The "Breeches Bible"
The Geneva version is often called the "Breeches Bible" from its translation of Genesis 3:7 : "They sewed figleaves together, and made themselves breeches." This translation, however, is not peculiar to the Genevan version. It is the translation of
15. The Bishops' Bible
Queen Elizabeth, the beginning of whose reign was beset with great difficulties, restored the arrangements of Edward VI. A copy of the Great Bible was required to be provided in every church, and every encouragement was given to the reading of the Scriptures. The defects of the Great Bible were admitted, and were the not unnatural result of the haste with which - notwithstanding its two revisions - it had been produced. These became more apparent when set beside the Geneva version, which, however, the archbishop and clergy could hardly be expected to receive with enthusiasm, as they had had nothing to do with its origin and had no control over its renderings and marginal notes. Archbishop Parker, moreover, who had an inclination to Biblical studies, had at the same time a passion for uniformity; and probably to this combination of circumstances may be traced the origin of the Bishops' Bible. Parker superintended the work, which was begun in 1563-64; he was aided by eight bishops - from whom the version received its name - and other scholars. It appeared in a magnificent volume in 1568, without a word of flattery, but with a preface in which the revisers express a lofty consciousness of the importance of their work. It was published in 1568: cum privilegio regiae Majestatis . A revised and in many places corrected edition was issued in 1572, and another in 1575, the year of the archbishop's death. The general aim of the version is a quaint literality, but along with this is found the use of not a few explanatory words and phrases not found in the original text. More exact notice also than in previous versions is taken of the use of the Greek article and of the particles and conjunctions. It bears marks, however, of the hand of the individual translators by whom the work was done; and of the want of the revision of each translator's work by the rest, and of some general revision of the whole. The Genevan version was the work of collegiate labor, to which much of its superiority is due. Though Parker did not object to the circulation of the Genevan version, Convocation after his death made some unsuccessful attempts to popularize the Bishops' Bible; but the Genevan translation was not easily thrust aside. "It grew," says Eadie (II, 35), "to be in greater demand than the Bishops' or Cranmer's. Ninety editions of it were published in the reign of Elizabeth, as against forty of all the other versions Of Bibles, as distinct from New Testaments, there were twenty-five editions of Cranmer's and the Bishops', but sixty of the Genevan."
16. Rheims and Douai Version
The production of an official version of the sacred Scriptures for English Roman Catholics was probably due more to rivalry with the Reformers than to any great zeal of the authorities of the Roman church for the spread of vernacular Scripture; though, according to the Arundelian Constitution above mentioned, it was only to the printing and reading of unauthorized translations that objection was then taken by the Roman authorities. But if there was to be a special version for Catholics, it was clearly reasonable that the work should be done by Catholics and accompanied by Catholic explanations. This was undertaken by some English Catholic scholars who, on the success of the Reformation in England, had left the country and settled at Douai in the Northeast of France, with a short transference of their seminary to Rheims. The version was probably produced under the influence of (Cardinal) Allen and an Oxford scholar, Gregory Martin. It was made from the Vulgate, the Bible of Jerome and Augustine, and not, like the Protestant
17. The Authorized Version
The King James Version owed its origin to a chance remark regarding mistranslations in the existing versions made at the Hampton Court Conference, a meeting of bishops and Puritan clergy held (1604) in the interest of religious toleration before James was actually crowned. The meeting was ineffectual in all points raised by the Puritans, but it led to the production of the English Bible. Dr. Reynolds, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, probably with some reference to the rivalry between the Bishops' Bible and the Genevan version, remarked on the imperfections of the current Bibles. The remark was not very enthusiastically received except by the King, who caught eagerly at the suggestion of a fresh version, "professing that he could never yet see a Bible well translated in English," and blaming specially the Genevan version, probably on account of the pointed character of its marginal notes. Probably with the aid of the universities, the King without delay nominated the revisers to the number of fifty-four from among the best Hebrew and Greek scholars of the day. Only 47 actually took part in the work which, however - officially at least - they were in no hurry to begin; for, although named in 1604 and with all the preliminaries arranged before the end of that year, they did not begin their work till 1607. Their remuneration was to be by church preferment, for which the archbishop was to take measures. The immediate expenses, the King suggested, should be supplied by the bishops and chapters who, however, did not respond. "King James' version never cost King James a farthing," says Eadie (II, 153 f), who here gives some interesting information on this aspect of the revision. They wrought in six companies of which two met respectively in Westminster, Cambridge and Oxford. Elaborate rules, given in full in most histories of the Bible, were laid down for the revisers' guidance, the King being particularly insistent upon Rule 9, which provided for the revision of the work of each Company by the rest. When any Company had finished the revision of a book, it was to be sent to all the rest for their criticism and suggestions, ultimate differences of opinion to be settled at a general meeting of each Company. Learned men outside the board of revisers were to be invited to give their opinions in cases of special difficulty.
18. The Apocrypha
One of the Cambridge Companies was specially appointed to revise the Apocrypha, in which considerable license was taken, as the seven members composing the Company had probably no very firm belief in the inspiration of its books. The marginal notes, too, are freer in character than those of the Old Testament. By the early translators, Tyndale and Coverdale, the Apocrypha was simply accepted as part of the heritage of the church; it had a place likewise in the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible and most even of the Gentvan copies. But by the middle of the 17th century opinion even in the Church of England had changed regarding it, and it was about this time that Bibles began to be printed having the canonical books only. The Apocrypha is now hardly at all printed otherwise than separately (note also should be taken of the treatment of the Apocrypha in the Revised Version (British and American), as stated below).
Impressed with the importance of their task, the revisers worked strenuously at it for two years; and nine months more were devoted to revision by a special committee consisting of two members from each center, and in 1611 the result of the work appeared. It is not wonderful that the work was described by a contemporary entitled to give a judgment on it (Selden, Table Talk ) as "the best translation in the world" - a verdict that later opinion has abundantly ratified. It was the copestone of a work on which 90 years of solid labor had by different hands been expended, and it was done by half a hundred of the foremost scholars of the day who knew Hebrew and Greek, and who also knew English For three centuries it has grown in popular esteem, and it is justly regarded as one of the best possessions and one of the most unifying influences of the widely scattered English-speaking race.
On the title-page as issued in 1611 the version is described as "newly translated out of the original tongues" and as "appointed to be read in churches," two statements not easy to reconcile with the actual facts. The first rule for the revisers' guidance provided that the work was to consist in a revision of the Bishops' Bible: it was not said that it was to be a new translation. There is, further, no sanction of the version by King, Parliament, Convocation or Privy Council. Like Jerome's version twelve centuries before, it was left to find acceptance as best it might by its own intrinsic merit.
19. Further Revisions
Already in the days of the Commonwealth proposals were made for a new version; but though several meetings were held of a committee appointed by Parliament for the purpose in 1657, nothing came of the movement (Lewis, History of Translations , 354). For nearly half a century the chief rival of the King James Version was the Geneva Bible which was in wide private use. Formal revision was not undertaken again till the reign of Queen Victoria. But between 1611 and the date of the recent revision not a few small alterations had been silently introduced into the King James Version, as was indeed only to be expected if the changes in the orthography of the language were to be correctly represented on the printed page. Advancing literary criticism, too, and minute linguistic study showed that since the days of the revisers many words had changed their meaning, and that verbal inaccuracies and a few less venial errors could be proved in the revisers' work. But what probably weighed most with scholars in inducing them to enter upon a new version was the extraordinary increase that since the last revision had taken place in our knowledge of the Hebrew text and more especially of the Greek text of Scripture. Important manuscripts had been brought to light of which the 17th-century revisers knew nothing, and scholars had with minute care examined and compared all the early copies of the Scripture studies which, without altering the main import of the gospel story, were shown to have considerable importance on the actual words' and sometimes on the meaning of the text. After much discussion of the subject in special volumes and in the leading magazines and reviews of Britain and America, there was a general agreement among scholars that a fresh version was advisable.
20. English Revised Version
The history of the English revision is given at length in the preface to the English Revised Version of the New Testament. It originated with the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church of England in the year 1870, when a committee of 16 members was appointed with power to add to its numbers. By this committee invitations to join it were issued to the outstanding Hebrew and Greek scholars of the country, irrespective of religious denomination, and eventually two Companies were formed, one for the Old Testament and one for the New Testament, consisting each of 27 members, in which all the churches of the country were represented, the Roman Catholics alone excepted, and Dr. Newman had been invited to join the New Testament committee. The churches of America were also invited to cooperate, and this they did by forming two Companies corresponding to the British with due provision for the mutual comparison of results and suggestions. Where the suggestions from America were not accepted by the British revisers, they were recorded in an appendix to the published volume. The names of the revisers and the rules and principles laid down for the procedure of both Companies will be found in Eadie (II, 481ff). The New Testament was published in May, 1881; the work occupied the Company for about 40 days in each year for 10 years. The Old Testament revision occupied the Company for 792 days in a period of 14 years. The entire Bible was published in May, 1885. It did not include the Apocrypha, a revision of which was issued separately in 1895.
21. American Revised Version
This was undertaken, not by Convocation, but by the University Presses, a special Company being formed for the purpose from the Old Testament and New Testament Companies. For AMERICAN REVISED VERSION see separate article. On
22. Has the Revised Version (British and American) Displaced the American Version?
The Revised Version (British and American) has been before the English-speaking world for a quarter of a century and it can hardly be said with safety that it has as yet made any progress in displacing the King James Version in public esteem. Of course as much could be said for the King James Version in its day. It was very slow in gaining acceptance with the people: and yet unreasoning affection for its very words and phraseology is now one of the main obstacles to the acceptance of an admittedly more scientifically based original text and a more correct and not displeasing rendering of the same. A large number of the changes are certainly not such as appeal strongly to popular sympathy. "The Greek text of the New Testament of 1881 has been estimated to differ from that of 1611 in no less than 5,788: readings, of which about a quarter are held notably to modify the subject-matter; though even of these only a small proportion can be considered as of first-rate importance" (Kenyon, 239). On the other hand Hebrew, and especially the cognate Semitic languages, are now a great deal better known than before 1611, and considerable improvement is noticeable in the bringing out of the meaning in the poetical and prophetical books. The Revised Version (British and American) contains the best results of the scholarship of the Victorian age and cannot fail to be regarded as of the greatest utility to the reader and student of the King James Version. In the religious life the mind is essentially conservative, and nothing but time will show whether the undoubted merits of the Revised Version (British and American) are such as to outweigh the claims of sentiment and affection with which the King James Version is held. See further AMERICAN REVISED VERSION .
Literature
Perhaps the most complete work on the subject in all its aspects is that by Dr. John Eadie, The English Bible: an External and Critical History of the Various English Translations of Scripture , 1876. Eadie was himself one of the revisers of 1870, and some of his concluding chapters contain "Remarks on the Need of Revision of the English New Testament." He is also highly appreciative but judiciously critical of his predecessors in the same field, e.g. of Lewis, Complete History of Several Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English , 1731, 1818; and Christopher Anderson, The Annals of the English Bible , 2 volumes, 1845, 1 volume rev. edition, 1862. An earlier and also very good book is Westcott's General View of the History of the English Bible , 1868. Westcott was also one of the revisers of 1870 and criticizes the work of the various translators as well as narrates the succession of the translations. A good discussion of the internal history of the text will also be found in the History of the English Bible by Dr. Moulton, another of the revisers. Kenyon, Our Bible and Ancient manuscripts , 1895, considers specially the text on which the successive English versions were based. He writes judiciously also on the Wycliffe period and on the Revised Version (British and American). The Wycliffe period should also be studied in Forshall and Madden, 4 volumes, 4to, Oxford, 1850; England in the Age of Wycliffe , by G. M. Trevelyan; Dr. Gasquet's Our Old English Bible and Other Essays , 1908; and Lechler's John Wycliffe and His English Precursors , translated and edited by Lorimer. For the Reformation period generally Foxe's History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church still deserves to be studied. "Foxe's story is doubtless substantially true, although disfigured by credulity and bitter prejudice." For Tyndale's special work see William Tyndale , a Biography , by R. Demaus, new edition by Lovett, 1886; and Fry's Bibliographical Descriptions of the Editions of the New Testament , Tyndale's Version in English. Fry has also written special works on the Great Bible, Cranmer's Bible and the Genevan Version. The King James Version is very fully described in the works above mentioned, and in this connection notice is due to Scrivener, The Authorised Edition of the English Bible , 1884, and more especially to his careful and thorough "Introduction" to the Quarto Paragraph Bible , 1873. More popular histories of the Bible are those of Stoughton, Pattison, 1874, and Professor Milligan of Glasgow, 1895. General histories of England and of English literature may also be profitably consulted on the history of the Bible and its translation into the vernacular, such as those of Hume, Burnet, Hallam, Froude, Green and Gardiner. The revision of the King James Version called forth a large literature, either in the way of preparation for it or of criticism of it when carried through. To this literature many of the revisers themselves contributed, among whom may be mentioned Eadie, Ellicott, Westcott, Humphry, Newth and Kennedy; nor should the important contributions of Archbishop Trench and Dean Alford, though of a slightly earlier generation, be overlooked. The American revisers also republished a series of Essays written by some of their number on Biblical Revision: Its Necessity and Purpose , 1879; and account should be taken also of the Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision prepared by that committee for the use of its members.
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Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'English Versions'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/e/english-versions.html. 1915.
